Tenant Transition To New Landlord/owner
I will be closing at the end of this month on 3 duplexes and one triplex. As a new landlord/owner, I am looking for input on what is the best way to prepare for the transition for tenants of new ownership. Is there anyone who might be willing to share how they went about making this transition? For example, in introducing myself as a new owner, I would imagine a letter would be sent to the tenants identifying the new owner, and address for sending their rent monies. Who would send this letter? The old owner, new owner (me), or both? And with the closing at the end of the month, (Oct. 27th), I am concerned that the tenants may not get the letter in time to send the rents to the right address. Any thoughts or suggestions on this? I will greatly appreciate your input on this.
Thx in advance.
ED
What I usually do is place a letter on the door stating that I am the new owner. If they happen to be home I would try to speak with them for a few minutes. I am assuming that you would want to get the current tenants under a lease in your words and by your rules, so you would want to meet with them ASAP. You can to this before the closing and make the lease agreement start date the date of the closing. If the current owner has a good standing with the tenants have the both of you go and meet with them.
Best of luck.
HomeFront - Thanks for your input. Is there anyone out there who can provide some additional insights/thoughts?
ED
Hi Ed,
Hi Ed,
In this situation, I would send up to three notices to all of the tenants that as of this date__________ all rent payments and correspondance be sent to __________and made apyable to ________________. There should also be an agreement from the person that you are buying them from that if any rents are sent to them that they will forward them to you within _____ days. Have your attorney do this for you. I would also make certain that every tenant is on a current lease. If they are not, go ahead and take posession. This is a great time to raise the rents if there is room to do so. Send the non-leased tenants a letter or call them and ask them if they are still interested in renting from you. If so, they will need to complete a new lease agreement. I would handle this right away.
I wouldn't make a special effort to go out and introduce myself as the new owner, there will be plenty of opportunities with repairs, leases, etc to do this. So go ahead and send out your first of three letters/notices of where your tenants will send their rent to. It would be a good idea to print this on bright paper or cardstock (orange, yellow, etc). I hope this helps. Best of Success!
BAMZ
Hey,
I think it is a little late for my advise. But you should have spoken to ALL the tenants BEFORE you signed the contracts.
Why?
Because they will tell you every single, little, itsy-bitsy, minuscule problem with those properties. You then use that in your negotiations with the seller.
For now, send a registered notice to each tenant about the change.
thanks for providing additional input to my situation. Bruce, any advice is never too late, in my opinion, as it may helps others down the road. i have gone around to each duplex while checking out the properties and spoke briefly with each tenant and have gotten information as i tend to be very thorough in my dealings (i work as an auditor in my full time position). nevertheless, i have found this forum to be very valuable in getting input and ideas towards making any decision. if there are others who may have been in this scenario, i would appreciate any advice from those as well. thanks again for your thoughts.
ED